Recycled Post: You Have Time

As usual of late, this post is made of 100% recycled materials. Dr. Dina has a lot on her metaphorical plate right now. I hope to be back to regular posting with new material later this year, but the next few weeks are going to be insane around the James Household. You’ve been warned. This post was originally posted about this time last year, so go me for appropriate timing! – DJ

So Dr. Dina has been very busy this year. The majority of my posts have been recycled material when I remember it’s my day to post, and that’s not really fair to you, the readers.

It does, however, make for good material for this blog.

I’m going to rant a little on a subject that’s been discussed on my own blog, our Bitchstress Dreamkiller’s blog, and this blog itself. It’s been discussed many times in many different ways, but I’m going to bring it up again because it’s still an issue.

In case you’re new around here, the Evil League of Evil Writers’ form of motivational speaking/inspiration involves pointy or blunt objects, depending on the poster’s preference. (I prefer pointy, but blunt has its uses.) Today I’m going to go with a baseball bat, because some of you writers out there need a good beating.

“What is it?!” you cry as you run clumsily away from the serial-killer-stalkery of Dina-with-a-clue-bat, looking over your shoulder to see if I’m getting closer despite your running and my walking. (Hint: I am, because that’s how the Serial Killer Stalk works – you run, I walk, I get ahead of you and bludgeon the shit out of you. Seriously. Watch any of the Friday the 13th films.)

Today’s “it” is having time to write.

I hear it all the time (and it sends me into orbit) –

“I’d love to write, but I don’t have time!”

“I have so much to do, I can’t waste time writing!”

“You’re so lucky! You have so much time to write!”

And let’s not forget my personal favorite: “It must be so nice to have time to write!”

“Yes, but Big Name Author has a housekeeper/assistant/ *insert excuse here* and I’m just little me! I can’t-”

STOP.

Stop right there.

You see what you did there? See that? Look at that sentence again. What’s the word at the end there? Come on…you’re a writer! You know words!

“Can’t.”

See that? That word? There’s your problem, right there.

It’s not that you “can’t.” The problem is you “won’t.”

Think about that for a minute. Go on. I’ll wait.

*knits a row on her latest project*

Finished?

Did you understand the sentence? Really understand it? Because that’s really it.

You *can*. You probably have. I don’t care if it’s three words on a napkin at lunch, or fifteen pages at 3AM before you shower for your 5AM shift.

You “want to write?” Fuck you. You don’t “want to” write. You either write or you don’t. You make time, you don’t find it. Time isn’t hiding behind the couch, waiting for you to find it. And again-

NO ONE “HAS TIME” TO WRITE.

They write. Period. Whether that’s before the kids get up from school, or after they’re in bed at night, on your lunch break, on your smoke break, ten minutes while dinner is cooking…they’re writing.

As I said, everyone has lives, and everyone has issues. The difference between “wanting to write” and being a writer is making with the words.

So go make them. You can. You just have to make it happen. Get up ten minutes earlier. Go to bed twenty minutes later. And this applies to everything in your life, from unfucking your habitat to getting in shape.

It’s all about what you want and how badly you want it.

More than that, it’s about your attitude. That old 80s movie The Last Starfighter says it perfectly:

Main Character Alex: “Come on, Centauri, I’m just a kid from a trailer park-”
Centauri: *points at him* “If that’s what you think, then that’s all you’ll ever be.”

And that’s really it. If you think you don’t have time for writing, then you don’t, and you never will. It’s total bullshit, but that’s what it comes down to.